BERLIN (Reuters) - The tools the European Central Bank has at its disposal to stabilize the euro zone’s economy are inadequate on their own, and further instruments must be created to deal with this, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a business conference in Berlin, Scholz gave the example of the system the United States has in place to balance out unemployment and welfare insurance costs between states as a model that could work for Europe and Germany.

“There aren’t enough other instruments for economic stabilization in our common economic union like those you have elsewhere and we have to create that,” he said.

“Between the individual states of the U.S. there is an equalization fund for unemployment and social insurance, which exists not as a transfer but as a credit insurance system - that could help Europe and it is in the interests of Germany,” he added.